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The Tees Coal Company established at the beginning of this year. It commenced with 7 ships. [LRSN]

January 17. — About one o'clock on the morning, a fire broke out at Tanfield Moor staith, at Dunstan, near Newcastle. By the speedy arrival of the engines from the latter place, it was got under after a destruction to the amount of about £500. [LRS]

April 18. — As the workmen in the quarries at Fulwell, near Sunderland, were removing a large block of limestone into a cart, and finding it too large to lift, they broke the stone in two pieces, when, to their astonishment, an ask, about five inches long, with brown back and freckled belly, moved out of a cell in the solid block! [LRS]

June 23. — About this time, at Springwell colliery, near Ayton Banks, the trunk of an ash tree, measuring about four feet in length, was sawn into four divisions, when there was discovered in the very heart of the tree, a perfectly formed bird's nest with one egg. The trunk appeared perfectly sound with the exception of the part which contained the nest. [LRS]

July 5. — Two men were burnt to death at Morton lime kilns, near Staindrop. They had attended the kilns for several years, and, on this day, as a kiln did not sink after they had added some fresh stones to it, they incautiously went upon it to make it do so, and, unfortunately, they both slipped in; one of them to his waist, and the other nearly over head. [LRS]

July 20. — About four o’clock on the morning, nine men were burnt by the fire-damp in the Charles pit, Lumley colliery ; some of them severely. The accident was caused by a young man named Foster, going to a wrong part of the pit with his candle. There were upwards of 200 men and boys in the pit at the time. August 3rd, Robert Oughton, one of the sufferers, died in consequence. [LHTB]

September 5. — An explosion of gas took place at Fawdon colliery, near Newcastle, when three young men were much burnt, two of whom shortly afterwards died. [LHTB]

October. — A human skeleton, apparently that of a full-grown man, was found at Hayston-hill, near Houghton-le-Spring. Two men employed at the limestone-quarry at that place, having been ordered to remove the soil from a part of the hill opposite to the quarry, found the skeleton at a depth of about two feet from the surface. It was doubled up in a manner which left no doubt of murder having been committed. The teeth and a part of the hair still remained attached to the skull, and the marl around the skeleton was much discoloured, apparently by the recent decomposition of the body. [LRS]

 

 

 

• LHTB — Local Historian's Table Book of Remarkable Occurrences Connected with the Counties of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Northumberland and Durham by M.A. Richardson. Published in five volumes in 1844.
• LRS — Local Records or Historical Register of Remarkable Events by John Sykes, Published in 1833 in two volumes
• LRSN — Local Records of Stockton and the Neighbourhood by Thomas Richmond. Published in one volume in 1868.